I can only speak for the shops locally, but I'd say that only about one in ten people buy a bag in the supermarket. Guess there's some truth to the stereotype of the frugal Scotsman.
The machines in most of the local supermarkets seem to love giving out 5p coins. I will rarely get a 10p and sometimes no 20p coins, but instead get a deluge of 5p ones. (A bit like my bank, which once supplied me with 1000 Deutschmarks, all in 5 and 10 DM notes: 143 of them.)
, plus I found some bargain sandals in another shop). It was very lucky as the old faithful's handle broke as I got on the bus, so I tied it to the other handle to get me home and will take it back for a free exchange tomorrow - well that's what it says on the bottom of the bag. No such promise with Morrisons overpriced offering.Can they give notes as change? What happens if they don't have enough cash to give change? (Or is that impossible?)
They can give notes as part of the change. I would guess they either go out of service or switch to only accepting card payments if the change reserves get too low.
If you mean credit notes, then I don’t think so. If you don’t get any or enough change you have to call for Help and explain. There will be a long wait while they poke the machine, get somebody more senior, who then pokes the machine before going off to get a key. Once it is opened, if the reason for the blockage is obvious, such as a bit of card in the wrong place, they say, “I don’t know how that got there”, in a tone suggesting that you have somehow managed to insert the card at the bottom of the column of coins, before finally handing over the due sum. If the reason is not obvious, you have to prod them to give you your money and not wait for someone to come from Taiwan to examine the machine.
I got fed up with Morrisons machines throwing out small coins in change like a demented fruit machine, and having to scoop them up, so for the first time I counted these coins before putting them in my pocket and found I was 1p out of pocket. I called the member of staff, who was the Chief Cook and Bottlewasher i.e. he'd been there for more than two years and probably got 20p per hour more than Minimum Wage. He tutted until I pointed out that if I'd been 1p short of paying the bill, then Morrisons' tills would have insisted on alternative form of payment, or whatever. He made great show of presenting me with a penny, but was a bit embarassed when I told him to put it into a charity box along with the £1 coin I produced from my pocket. I'd made my point.
We were always advised to count the change back into the customer's hand, so I think these machines should be retrained...
Older models don’t recycle notes or coins but newer models do. The large supermarkets generally have a mixture of older and newer models across their store estates.
The older models don’t have sufficient dispensers to hold all denominations of coins. Consequently they cannot dispense 50p and 10p coins as change.
IIRC Morrisons used to use the Wincor-Nixdorf (now Diebold-Nixdorf) terminals but then switched to NCR ones. As such, their self service tills, excluding in their newest stores, are all seemingly of a similar age as they did a wholesale replacement of the Nixdorf ones with NCR. At least that's how it appeared as an outsider.
Trying to find where to put the coins in when your glasses are steamed up, something that has been more common with masks, is not an easy job. “Why don’t you lift your glasses up?” “ That takes one hand. I have a stick in the other. What am I going to use to put the coins in the slot?”
Ah,that would explain why I could never get rid of my copper coins by feeding them into self-service checkouts.
I did that over twenty five years of shopkeeping! Utterly impossible to instil that into someone younger, though...they'd just look at you pitifully.We were always advised to count the change back into the customer's hand, so I think these machines should be retrained...
"So that's three sixty-two, three-seventy, eighty, four, five and five's ten"
The coins the machines tend to give out tend to be the smaller ones (so 2x5p for 10p, 2x5p + 2x20p for 50p, 2x£1 for £2), so not just fewer dispensers but those requiring less width? Just a theory.
When I first started teaching, we were required to teach that method as part of CSE Maths, it was part of Money Management (along with Income Tax, National Insurance, reading Electricity Meters, etc). Soon to be replaced by really useful things like set theory, topology and the like!!We were always advised to count the change back into the customer's hand, so I think these machines should be retrained...
"So that's three sixty-two, three-seventy, eighty, four, five and five's ten"
One plus about the self service machines, is that when the bill comes to £8.21, and you pass over 1 £10 note along with two coins, it doesn't say 'you've given me too much', pass the 20p and 1p back and then proceed to give 1x£1, 1x50p, 1x20p, 1x5p, 2x2p then ring the bell because they want more change!
I trust you counted them before handing her the £100.
Another plus about using cash at the supermarket self service tills. Why pay for services like Coinstar, when you can bung all your (or your daughter's) small change into the coin hopper on the till?
Coin hopper? All my local supermarkets have replaced any they did have with slots which are (intentionally?) much more awkward to use.
Sorry, I haven't got a clue what they are called. some are the fiddly slots like old fashioned phone boxes, others can take a flow of coins. Maybe the supermarkets round your way have got too many people like @Bald Rick (#291)?
I understood what you meant by hoppers was the things you can drop a handful of coins into but was surprised they were still in use anywhere. Perhaps they concentrate them in areas with the lowest concentrations of users like Bald Rick?!
You must have gone through quite a few £1.50 transactions then! (30x5p)
I meant Bank of England notes (or RBS/Ulster Bank, for that matter).
